A Tune, Subtle and Vast: Heidi Leitzke & Jon Weary

January 13 – February 25, 2023

A Tune, Subtle and Vast is a two-person exhibition of recent work by artists Heidi Leitzke and Jon Weary. The title, inspired by writer and environmentalist Wendell Berry, alludes to the artists’ shared reflections on nature, seasonality, and nineteenth-century landscapes and material processes. A nuanced understanding of temporality and a reverence for the vastness of the natural world can be seen in both Leitzke’s and Weary’s works. For instance, Leitzke uses hand-held embroidery techniques to “paint” with thread in her works. In contrast to the traditional subjects and style of this craft, Leitzke depicts landscapes that are at once hauntingly beautiful and threateningly bound by the built environment. Similarly, Weary appropriates unpretentious cross-stitch patterns in his prints and paintings to question various approaches to abstract and agrarian representation. In addition to reclaiming and revising traditional “women’s work,” Weary and Leitzke work with and against the conventions of landscape to rediscover Pennsylvania-specific motifs and locations: orchards, islands in the Susquehanna, and Pennsylvania German folk art. Their works can be seen as radically nostalgic, as each artist offers new ways for connecting with the past and making sense of a rapidly changing environment.